"You may well be surprised," Isabel answered coloring, "I am afraid when
Mrs. Arlington hears of it she will be of Lady Ashton's opinion, that I
am not fit to have charge of her daughters."

Emily laughed.

"Did she say that," said Everard, "it was very impertinent of her."

"She thinks herself a privileged person, you would be astonished I can
tell you if you heard all that she said."

"Do be quiet Emily," interrupted Isabel.

But Emily kept giving provoking little hints all breakfast time, and
even as they walked to church she let out little bits, until Isabel grew
almost angry. Everard admired the church exceedingly, "that is just such
a church as I would like," he said as they went home.

"Oh Everard," exclaimed Emily, "a little bit of a church like that."

"It is not so small," he returned.

"Oh well, I thought you were more ambitious, if I were a clergyman I
should wish to preach to a crowded assembly in a very large city church,
and make a sensation."

"Emily!"

"Oh don't look so grave."

"A man that would care about making a sensation, would not be fit to be
a clergyman."

"Oh Everard, I am sure it is only good clergymen that do make a
sensation."

"What do you call making a sensation?" he inquired.

"Why, to have every body saying what a splendid preacher, and praising
you up to the skies."

"Of course every clergyman should aim to be a good preacher, but his
sermon should be composed with the object of doing as much good as
possible, the idea of getting praise by it should never enter his head."

"Of course I know I never should have done for a parson, if I had been a
man I should have been a----."

"Lawyer," the children all shouted in a breath.

"Or a midshipman," said Emily.

"I wonder what Miss Leicester would have been," observed Rose.

"A doctor," said Emily, "I know she would have been a doctor, wouldn't
you Isabel."

Isabel became scarlet, this was only a random suggestion, but it seemed
so like the answer the children had given Emily, that it made her color
painfully.

"Oh what is the use of talking such nonsense," she replied, but her
vivid color had given Emily a new idea; Isabel she whispered "do those
pet letters come from a doctor," a shade passed over Isabel's face like
a cloud over the sun, as the thought occured that she should get no more
pet letters, as Emily chose to call them, for though she had so firmly
resolved not to allow her thoughts to dwell upon the p